


We Call Ourselves Creators

by SamTheChangeling



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: AU that I have no idea how to tag, Dark!Matt, Drabble, I have ZERO idea how to tag this?????, It's interesting though!, Not Canon Compliant, critical role - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 21:45:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16104437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamTheChangeling/pseuds/SamTheChangeling
Summary: "Matt sits in front of eight beds.And he reads to them."'An quite odd look on Critical Role, Matt, and the dice.'((Campaign 2 rewrite of user xaidyl's story "The DM Is A Neutral God"! Please note that this is NOT my original idea! I just couldn't resist writing it with campaign 2 characters!))





	We Call Ourselves Creators

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The DM is a Neutral God](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8832454) by [Bolts_of_nice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bolts_of_nice/pseuds/Bolts_of_nice). 



> Hello! Again, please note, not my original idea! This is nothing more than an exercise to get me back into writing after a long hiatus, but it IS a rewrite, which means there will be similar language, etc. The story idea isn't mine, and neither is Critical Role, nor the characters used. Just having some fun. The original story is honestly great, and if you haven't read it, maybe check it out before you check this out.  
> ((I've only seen campaign 2 up to episode 12 by this point, by the way. Once I watch more there's a very good chance that I'll come back to this story and either edit its content or write more chapters!!))

Matt sits in front of eight beds, and he reads to them.

He sits in a wooden chair, small but sturdy and fairly comfortable nonetheless, overlooking them all. Eight beds, lined up against a wall in front of him. Eight beds, seven holding what should have been figments of Matt's imagination but ended up... corporeal. A physical manifestation of the power that he'd come to feel, because They were kind to him. They let Matt make them real. Eight beds, and one was empty. Matt presumed that one was meant for him, but he'd never lied in it. He didn't want to. He enjoyed reading, needed to read to them. Thumbing the pages of the soft-covered book he held in his hands, parchment bending to his hands and his will like the story inside, he took a deep breath, and he read. Stories of marvelous encounters, battles, witty comments, lost friends and enemies and hope and despair and loss flowing from his tongue, flowing from his soul. His stories were all he knew, and They let him read them. Matt had no choice but to be thankful. If he hadn't his stories, his characters, his worlds, he hadn't anything. They let him keep them.  
Eight beds, each holding a main character of his stories.

Firstly, a girl. Fairly small framed, with deep blue skin and horns adorning the sides of her temples through ruffled cobalt hair. Her mouth occasionally twitched in her sleep, when Matt led them through something particularly funny or particularly painful. Simple, ragged white clothing rests on her torso. She looks peaceful. Matt called her simply Jester, after her humorous personality.

Next to her, a taller man. Purple skin, the same horns shone through his messy hair, and patters of purples and reds in checkered cloth resting around his upper body. Ornate tattoos covered his right arm and chest, winding to his back that Matt was unable to see: a winding snake, surrounded by flowers. Mollymauk Tealeaf, who had worked with a travelling carnival Matt wanted to visit so badly. Sometimes, Matt dreamed about it. He called it The Fletching And Moondrop Traveling Circus Of Curiosities. A fitting name, Matt had decided.

After Mollymauk came a ragged man of average size, rough ginger facial hair and pale skin, seemingly human. Scars lined his face and lightweight brown robes covered his body, without the furs that Matt had imagined but had no choice to accept anyway. Spellcasting was his specialty and it had saved their group in Matt's stories more than once (even if he never truly healed from the first time he'd killed with his magic. Matt enjoyed feeling the anguish this man felt of knowing he'd caused a life lost. It made everything more real.) His cat didn't exist here, but Matt gave him one anyway, an orange tabby he named Frumpkin. Matt had called the man Caleb Widogast.

Lying in a bed slightly closer to Caleb than the others was a small green-skinned girl covered in white tattered bandages, pointed ears pierced with small gold hoops sticking out. Matt knew from his reading that her closed eyes shone a bright yellow under the sun of his world. A grey hooded cape pooled around her head and rested along her torso. She was skittish, and nervous, and stole things frequently - Nott The Brave, Matt had called her. Matt shaped her into irony, and he made Caleb love her deeply. Matt made her trust him back.

Tall and also green-skinned, a man with shorter black hair and a squared jaw lied next to her. Broad and fairly muscular, with brown robes not unlike Caleb's (albeit thicker and lacking sleeves) adorning him. He was a simpler man with simpler ideals, despite his past: Matt had given him a past as a sailor on the Menagerie Coast, forced him through a shipwreck, and yet made him maintain a pure admiration of the sea. Fitting conditions for a fitting name: Fjord.

In the sixth bed was a woman with skin almost bronze. Again, seemingly human. An undercut of black hair pulled around the top of her head and blue robes laid gracefully on her body. Matt had given her wit, and moxie, and a sureness about her that he almost envied, despite creating it himself. He'd called her Beuregard, a simple and less feminine name, something that Matt felt fit her personality. It ended up shortened to Beau, and Matt liked that, too.

Lastly, lying in between Beau and the empty bed, a broad woman. Easily the most decorated of any of them, beads dangled from her long, thick hair, black fading to a pale white. Black cloth pooled on and around her torso, which was lacking the extensive faux furs and armors Matt had given her in his stories. He didn't like that, he wanted them to look as real as possible, but he couldn't complain. Complaining made Them upset, and when They were upset, They punished him. They took from him. Matt named her Yasha. "Defender of man."

Every day, he sat in front of eight beds, and he read. Pages and pages of grueling battle, intrepid adventures, compelling encounters. Matt gave them all traits, and voices, and hearts, and souls. Every day, nothing changed as he slept and woke in his chair, picked up his book, and read. Every day, new pages and new words appeared that even he himself didn't know. Sometimes he didn't mind, and other times he defied the book in his hands, molding the plot to his own liking. They never stopped him. They gave him the freedom to do this occasionally, to have power over his creations. He suffered them through betrayals, and heartaches, imprisonment and escapes. He dragged them through death over and over, feeling their pain, hearing their screams, hearing their sobs, feeling their hands hurriedly and needily reach for each other, press each other's wounds. He gave them quiet nights by firelight, in which he could almost hear the chirps of insects and leaves rustling in a cool breeze. He gave them days filled with laughter and wandering villages and drinking over shared stories. Matt gave them experiences, and he in turn got a chance to feel. Rarely, he would become almost animalistic in nature, as heated battles raged and his hands shot up, out, gesturing, his head moving back and forth as his tongue curled around the words he spat out.

He gave them his life.

 

When one of them woke up, Matt nearly broke down on the spot.  
Matt's day had started like every day. He'd woken in his wooden chair, gazed over the eight beds in front of him, picked up his leather bound book, and began to read. He read tales of their arrival to a small port city he'd named Nicodranas, and as he described the brilliant shimmering of seawater, Jester's eyes slowly opened.  
Matt immediately stopped reading. He knew when something was wrong, knew when one of his characters was wrong, knew when the air in his room was wrong. His eyes shot up, darting around the room before resting on Jester's eyes, full of confusion. Matt stood and set his open book on the chair before walking slowly over to Jester, who seemed unable to move far, and almost delirious. Matt's eyes met hers, and he saw her smile briefly before he covered her mouth and nose with one hand, shutting her eyes with the other. "Sleep, now. Please," he whispered to her, his voice cracking slightly. "Please, sleep. Please, don't leave me..."  
He felt her relax immediately, and pulled his hands back.  
Jester didn't move again.  
Matt knew what was _allowed_ of him, of course. He knew he was unallowed to touch them, speak to them, interact with them save the stories he created, but he couldn't lose Jester. He couldn't lose any of them. He'd **created** them. They had no right to take his creations away from him. They had before, his characters had woken up, moved, walked, stared him dead in his eyes before being lulled towards the door that Matt himself wasn't allowed to open, falling to the floor with fading vision and a splitting headache before eventually losing consciousness and reawakening in his chair every time he tried - the only door in his room, the only escape. Matt knew better than to try to open the door now. Trying made Them upset, and he couldn't lose anybody else. Matt picked up his book, closed it, and stared hard at all eight beds. Nobody else moved. He heard no knocking at his door, no indication that They were upset with him, so he remained still. He refused to read for the remainder of the night, but the next day, picked up his book and began reading again.

Although it took a bit of time, Fjord woke up next, to more stories of the Menagerie Coast. It was a scene Matt enjoyed, gentle crashing waves along the shores of small cities bustling with trade, drink, conversation. Fjord's breathing increased as Matt described their comings and goings of Port Damali, the strange people they encountered, and Matt froze. He knew when something was wrong, knew when one of his characters was wrong, knew when the air in his room was wrong. Fjord was... breathing too much air. Taking too much. Taking more than Matt _said_ he could take. Fjord's head turned to one side as his eyes shot open, and he immediately sat up, looking around. Fjord saw wooden walls, saw a barren room save for a door, a chair, and eight beds, saw Matt sitting in his chair, eyes wide and staring hard. Matt saw a blend of fear and anger scrawl across Fjord's face, and he leapt up, running to, then past, the foot of the fifth bed. Matt snarled as he wrapped both of his hands around Fjord's throat, slamming him down onto his back onto the mattress. "Stay." A simple command, a word dripping with insecurities and rage. Fjord's eyes slowly closed as his breath left him. A sharp knock on his door made Matt's hands fall limp instantly. Fjord stayed put then, and Matt was thankful for that - why wouldn't he be thankful that They chose to let him keep Fjord? - but he knew that he'd angered Them. Matt knew that he'd stepped out of line, moved out of turn. Matt knew when he woke the next morning and Fjord was nowhere to be seen.

Eight beds, and two were empty. Matt held his book tightly in his grip as he read that day, tears streaming silently down his cheeks, his voice sounding softer than usual. He didn't want to live through this anymore. Matt hated when They took from him. Matt had crafted those characters with his soul, with his voice, and they were all he had.  
Matt knew that They were aware. Matt knew the power that They still had over him, even here, in his room of his own creations.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not going to lie, I want to continue this so bad, so I probably will later. This fic marks the first piece of writing that I've done in months, and at almost 2k words, I feel really good about it!


End file.
